Au Hasard Balthazar

Au Hasard Balthazar

Robert Bresson is among the saints of the cinema and “Au Hasard Balthazar” (1966) is his most heartbreaking prayer. The film follows a donkey’s life from birth to death, all the while living it with the dignity of being itself a dumb beast, noble in its acceptance of a life over which it has no control. This is not one of those cartoon animals that can talk and sing and is really a human with four legs. It’s a donkey, pure and simple.

We see him first as a newborn, taking his first shaky steps; there’s a scene here that supplies something like a key to all the rest of the film. Three children sprinkle water on his head and baptize him. What may Bresson be suggesting? That if only humans can go to heaven according to the church, surely there must be some place for all His creatures at God’s side.

Balthazar spends his early years at a farm in this rural French district where everything takes place; he’ll be owned by many local people and come back into some of their lives more than once. Some are good but all are flawed, although there’s one local drunk who isn’t cruel or thoughtless towards the animal, however bad he may otherwise be.

His first owner is Marie (Anne Wiazemsky), who gives him his name. Her father is the local schoolmaster; her playmate is Jacques (Walter Green), who agrees when she tells him they’re going to get married someday. Jacques’ mother dies and his sorrowing father leaves town, entrusting his farm to Marie’s father (Philippe Asselin), in whom he has complete trust.

Marie loves Balthazar and likes nothing better than decorating his bridle with wild-flowers, but does nothing whatsoever to defend him when local boys start teasing the poor creature. The gang-leader here is Gerard (Francois Lafarge), and when Marie looks up to the church choir during Mass as Gerard sings, he brings profanity even to holy words.

Marie’s father is a victim of pride. Though he’s managed the farm with perfect honesty, after jealous neighbors start spreading rumors that he’s stealing from the owner, he refuses to produce records or receipts in his defence; this drives him straight into bankruptcy through sheer stubbornness alone. Balthazar becomes the possession of a local baker and is used by the baker’s boy (none other than Gerard) for delivering bread.

Gerard abuses and mistreats him, until finally the donkey just stands still: it won’t budge an inch anymore. So Gerard ties a newspaper to its tail and sets it on fire. Eventually it collapses under Gerald’s mistreatment with talk of putting it down.

But Arnold (Jean-Claude Guilbert), the town drunkard saves him bringing him back to life; then there comes Balthazar’s short-lived moment of fame when he gets hired out as a circus animal. The Mathematical Donkey, capable of solving multiplication tables. This career soon ends however as Balthazar falls into hands of a hermit and eventually wanders back on its own again this time finding itself at the stable where its life had begun once more, only to discover Marie’s father there too and even Marie herself!

But this isn’t a sentimental ending. Marie’s a weak girl who turns away the honest Jacques when he comes back as a young man and says he still loves her. She chooses Gerard, who’s mean to her but looks flashy with his leather jacket and motorcycle. Through Balthazar’s eyes, what we see is a village full of small, flawed, weak people in which sweetness is rare and cruelty easy.

That’s what we see but what does Balthazar see? The brilliance of Bresson’s method is that he never provides us with any single moment that could be described as one of Balthazar’s “reaction shots.” Other movie animals roll their eyes or stomp their hooves; Butterscotch just walks or stands there, taking everything in with the understanding of a donkey who knows very well it is an ass and that its life consists solely of bearing or not bearing burdens, feeling pain or not feeling pain, experiencing pleasure or not experiencing pleasure: all equally beyond its control.

And then there is Balthazar’s bray. It is not a pleasant sound; it is the sound made by a donkey when it brays; and when Butterscotch brays it may be heard by some people as an ugly complaint; I am sure however that this noise represents for him one more thing he can do while passing through life as an animal among things: make loud noises about them sometimes! It should be noted though that at no time does our hero ever respond directly to events with cries like these; such behavior would reduce him to level below even average animated creature from cartoons.

The fact that the donkey cannot communicate thoughts doesn’t mean we cannot imagine them on contrary, nothing makes us empathize more than seeing those white-spotted furry cheeks together with those large round pupils which follow all emotions experienced by poor long-eared beast.

That’s civilizing purpose (and sometimes spiritual) in most of his movies; we must approach characters instead of expecting them to come into our lives. In most films, everything is done for viewers’ convenience. Laughter or tears are prompted at appropriate times; fear turns to relief when it’s expected according to Hitchcock movies should function as machines which produce certain feelings among audiences.

Bresson (and Ozu) do not share this view. They contemplate and invite us too while asking us about their personalities whose judgments we would like to make ourselves. That’s empathic cinema. It is worth mentioning that both Ozu and Bresson employ strict stylistic boundaries which could serve as inhibitors against manipulation of our emotions by filmmakers. In his sound productions Ozu avoids moving the camera almost entirely; each frame is fixed and often starts before characters enter a scene ending long after they have left it

To forbid actors from acting is Bresson’s most interesting limitation. Until no “acting” was left in it and the actors were just performing physical actions and speaking words, he would shoot the same scene 10 or 20 or 50 times. In his cinema there was no place for De Niro or Penn.

You might think that what comes out is a film full of zombies but quite the opposite happens: Bresson makes very emotional films by simplifying performance to the action and the word without allowing inflection or style; thus he achieves a purity of kind. Without telling us how we should feel about lives they portray, his actors force feelings upon us more often than not; having to decide for ourselves what we’re supposed to feel forces us empathise with them even stronger than if they had felt those feelings for themselves.

According to this philosophy, any donkey can be a perfect character of Bresson’s movies. Balthazar doesn’t try to communicate its emotions with us, nor does it tell us in any specific terms what it feels physically: being covered with snow cold; having its tail set on fire scared; eating dinner contentedness; overworking exhaustion; coming home relief at finding some familiar place around here somewhere. Some humans are kind to it while others cruel but human motives are beyond its ken so whatever they do must simply be taken as given.

But here’s the thing: We are all Balthazars, suggests Bresson. Whatever world wants will happen with us sooner or later regardless our dreams, hopes & best plans because despite ability of thinking and reasoning which makes believe that thought always implies some intentionality behind itself (to figure things out) intelligence gives only understanding without power over destiny whereas every individual believes he can find a way around situation or solve problem etcetera thanks to self-consciousness provided by own mental faculties as such means toward an end when result may be unknown beforehand or not even exist at all; still, however, he does not leave us completely empty handed because Bresson also offers idea of empathy which if taken up could provide comfort arising from sharedness concerning being human rather than despair arising from aloneness that comes with going through existence alone.

This thought is beautifully expressed in the last scene of “Au Hasard Balthazar”. Donkey is old and sickly so it walks into a flock of sheep just like when its life began. Other animals move around him sometimes rubbing against his body without paying much attention to person lying next taking this peer organism for granted along with field where they both dwell under sunrays shining down on their backsides.

Eventually dying away out there somewhere far off among them all while these creatures keep doing whatever it is they usually do until they die themselves too one day somewhere else sometime later on after him because only now has he found place where others think as he used to do before.

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